What computer/OS are you using?

[Nichi]

Well, I haven't used the Wii in a long time, but I'm sure of the fact my DS doesn't support WPA of any kind. It'd show that the network exists, but wouldn't let you connect to it because it lacks the ability to

[Krizonar]

We don't have any wireless security, it wastes people's time when they bring stuff over and nobody lives close enough to us for it to matter about people leeching.

[Chocofreak13]

same goes for us here, although i'm unsure how it was disabled. one day the network just became unsecured. not that it matters, since the only other people on the street who really use their computers are the nice family 2 doors up, and i highly doubt people that would feed our cat would leech our network (plus they have their own).

[Nichi]

For the hell of it, I tested to see how well the core members of the fleet act on the internet these days. Here are the results:

The Yeti: "Oh shi--" *BSOD*
Well, that was to be expected when you try to use IE5 in this day and age. I'm eventually going to put Firefox 2 on it to see how well it works with a more modern browser, although since I haven't maxed out it's RAM yet (It's still sitting at 40MB; remaining unchanged since roughly '98), I'm not expecting much of an improvement.

Frankenstein Classic: "Hero need RAM badly"
With IE6, it can do it, but just barely; Google is almost too intense for it. Of course, that may partially be the browser's fault; with Firefox 2, it may be better

Sonata, on OS X Panther: "Please; just one thing at a time"
She can handle herself well, as long as you keep it to one tab on Firefox with no other applications running in the background. With two tabs open and Skype in the background, she's about like Frankenstein Classic with just a browser open. Maybe if I maxed out her RAM, it would be a little better...

Sonata, on OS9: "I can do it, no problem"
Because of how little RAM OS9 needs compared to OS X, there's a lot more for her to work with, which makes surfing while doing other stuff more bearable. With Classilla, she is simply awesome.

Frankenstein V3: "I surf the net like a boss"
For a PC built around the remains of a 10+ year old gaming desktop, running the latest version of Firefox, this thing still kicks ass. I can pretty much do everything on it short of watching videos on YouTube at a decent quality (I have to set it to play in the lowest quality possible for playback to be smooth).

Asagi & Fuuka: "This is a little too easy, to be honest"
The two of them act pretty much the same when online, so I'll just lump them together. Of course, both have their RAM maxed out, so just about anything I can throw at them is going to be easy.

2k-tan the Desktop: *Yawn* "Wake me up when it can keep up with me"
Of course, being a cutting-edge gaming PC, everything is too easy for 2k. Not much else to say, really

[Chocofreak13]

i can't judge all of my fleet, since i haven't used all, but i'll follow suit and showcase how well each computer performs basic tasks:

Speedy: "Ohayo Gozamasu Kari-sama! Ready for the day?"
as my main PC, Speedy HAS to be up to standard in terms of performance and speed. while she's not the fastest in the house anymore (my sister's computer, Chise, is 2 years younger than speedy), she does what i need without complain. however, she seems to be a little fussy with the internet lately, but that's likely due to amount of tabs and youtube tabs i have open. ^^;

Tanky: "Huh? You need me?"
Tanky is running Windows 98SE, and since she was made for it, she flies. Combined with her being an IBM, she's earned the title of team tank. However, given the age of the OS, i mainly keep her around for backup and nostalgia reasons. ^^ She runs opera surprisingly well, and is likely the most stable of my computers (if only because Speedy's built in mic doesn't work).

Shitty: "HERE'S YOUR MUFFIN MASTER!! *eats email*
Oh, Shitty. <3 that lovable Dirpyhooves-type. Heh, i kid, but she's known as "Shitty" simply because she's gone through so many computer transformations (for awhile she earned the nickname "Argo", after the Argonauts' ship, because she had been rebuilt 3 times), and gone to the extremes of what a computer can do. For awhile there, she was running XP on under half a gig of ram, and she did it fairly well. She was also originally the 'family' computer, before being given to me, although all that remains of the original Shitty is a hard drive (8 gig bigfoot drive, size of a regular-sized novel) and a set of speakers. Despite everything, she's a loyal member of the fleet, and gives it her all, even if she fails hard. ^^;

Biggy: "Let's do this!"
Biggy earned her name because she weighs an easy 30 pounds (estimated). She's a compaq desktop model (the kind that lays flat instead of standing up) from my high school, running Windows 2000 sp4, and does so well, even without a built in wireless card. She has all sorts of odd programs left on from her school days, including a medical encyclopedia (she was from the vocational wing, specifically the health wing), but otherwise has all updates, so i don't intend to update her to XP. :3

Junkie: "Huh?"
As the newest member of my fleet, Junkie was intended to be a mother's day present for my mum last year. however, my mother wasn't interested, so i kept her. i've only booted her up once, when i was showing my mum, so i'm unsure how she handles or how she will (she's running XP but i intend to put ME on there).

Timmy: "Mas...ter...? *cough cough*"
Timmy is the only male member of my fleet, and he's going to have Windows 95.....but right now he lacks a brain. and is an unknown brand. when i got him home, i cracked him open, only to find out that he was made for windows 95 and didn't have a hard drive, or any ram. i gave him a little ram, but lacking a copy of 95, i'm not ready to give him a hard drive yet. in the meantime, he's acting as a powerslave for speedy, to power her music drive, although the last time i used him for this purpose he started beeping in an odd fashion, so i think he might be getting sick of it.

Gothy: "You're so indecisive, Master."
My beloved Gothy is the only mac of the crowd, and is the only one of my fleet i paid anything for. She's an 8 gig ipod nano 4th gen, bought at a costco with all my christmas money about 3 februarys ago. (6 months later, the 5th gen nano came out, proving the mantra that you buy a computer and 6 months later there's a new one.) gothy had a space upgrade last year, to a broken-down classic 5th gen, but that didn't last too long, so she went back to her current incarnation. she remains one of my most prized possessions, and when she runs out of juice or is forgotten at the house, it leads to a very cranky kari.

[Red-Machine]

Reading this month's issue of PCPro, they have an article on Apple's lacluster attitude to security.

When the whole MacDefender thing was going on, Apple sent a memo to all stores and authorised repair centres saying:

AppleCare does not provide support for removal of malware.  You should not confirm or deny whether the customer's Mac is infected or not.

If you call Apple tech support and mention antivirus they actually tell you NOT to install it.  If you ask me, that's just irresponsible and downright ignorant.  They're pretty much sticking their head in the sand and shouting "Lalalalala!  We don't get viruses!  Not listening!"

[Krizonar]

When there is a real virus, let me (and Apple) know, until then, antivirus will continue to be absolutely pointless, there's no defense against people being stupid enough to install programs that try to scam you, which is still not maleware or a virus.
Plus with a name like macdefender, if you tell people to install an antivirus, idiots are going to think it is an antivirus and install it voluntarily, then, like you, when it nags them they'll think it's a virus when it's not and destroy Apple's credibility because they told them to go out and get antivirus and now they have what, to them, looks like a virus, did you ever think of that?
How about you stop bashing a platform you seem to know so little about and go back to the one that by 2007 estimates, gets 20,000 new TRUE viruses a DAY. Luckily for me I play games in full-screen mode, so I rarely have to put up with the god-awful garbage BSOD'ing OS ripoff of Mac OS 2 where you have to go into the F'N firmware to get it to boot from a CD and it runs at the speed of snail when not in games even when according to WEI it has top of the line hardware at the max line 7.9

Amazing a Nintendo Wii with 16 MB of VRAM and a 750 MHz processor can play games like MP3 that look just as good as something with 2 GB VRAM and an effective 12GHZ processor can just because the software is different, but it's the truth, Mac runs circles around G6 and even steals its bandwidth when it wants to. Fricken stupid. Mac runs multiple degrees C cooler as well, even though G6 sounds like a mustang stuck in mud and has enough fans to cool a house. The only redeeming feature is it glows blue, which isn't even my favorite color.

[Bella]

When there is a real virus, let me (and Apple) know, until then, antivirus will continue to be absolutely pointless, there's no defense against people being stupid enough to install programs that try to scam you, which is still not maleware or a virus.

This.

Any dumbfuck who is dumbfuckly enough to give their credit card # to an unknown, sketchy company because they're told to deserves whatever they get. Be it system failure, their computer melting, or being impaled by a rusty railroad spike. It's sad that some scammers and the shitbrains they feed off of are giving OSX a bad name (at least among some people who know nothing about Unix security are how Unix systems work).



@Red: I understand your frustration, but you know nothing about Unix. Nothing. I'm not saying I'm a Unix expert, but I've been dealing with and studying *Nix systems since 2007 and have used a BSD Unix rig as my main machine since 2009 so I can say with a degree of certainty that I know a hell of a lot more than you do in these matters - the same goes for Kriz, who has used Unix presumably since Apple made the switch to Unix-based OSes. Once you learn about the security mechanisms of Unix and HOW our systems can become infected by malware, I will take the stuff you say about it seriously. Until then, you are a poorly-informed hater who falls for whatever Anti-OSX/Anti-Unix dredge you run across.

Please stick to what you know best - PCs, Windows, DOS, vintage micros - and quit pretending to have any sort of authority in a field you know nothing about.

[NejinOniwa]

CRapple: Republicans. Bitching and hiding their heads in the sands, not bothering to clean up the bajillion messes that crop up in the wake of their quest for LESS TAXES MORE SPARKLY AND GLOSS AND ALL THAT JAZZ.
Micro$oft: The swedish (Conservative/Liberal Right) Alliance government. Too busy trying to do everything at once to really get anywhere with anything important. Also the head honcho is hiding a dick and looks like a Moomin troll and batshit insane. Also STILL dumbstruck by the fact that they don't have majority in parliament monopoly on everything.

Pololitics=/=Information Technolology Industry. -_-

It's sad that some scammers and the shitbrains they feed off of are giving OSX a bad name (at least among some people who know nothing about Unix security are how Unix systems work).

I have to disagree - it's actually a good thing that misfortune befalls the Apple systems once in a while. Simply because, no matter how stable the system itself, it WILL eventually get some loose screws somewhere. If the company isn't ready for that, well, good riddance - but if the USERBASE doesn't have a shitling of what to do about it when it comes along, then DANG will all those harebrained little sugarcubes run rampant when shit hits the fan.

Chaos is good. As is disease, catastrophe, war and, well, computer-related menaces. BECAUSE THEY WILL EVENTUALLY CROP UP, SO IT'S BETTER WE LEARN HOW2DEAL WITH IT SOONER RATHER THAN TOO LATE.

[Red-Machine]

For once, we agree Nej.  I just can't understand why Apple would refuse to help its customers.

But then again, we are talking about the company that likes to screw over its userbase every once in a while for shits and giggles.

[Nichi]

Can we please stop bickering over what [OS/nation/religion/pony] is superior? I got sick of it a long time ago; it really makes us look bad as a community when, even with how few of us there are, we still can't put aside our differences and insist on fighting over such trivial things

[Bella]

What infighting? I'm not fighting with anyone and I'm not certainly not arguing. But if there's one thing that pisses me off, it's when people pretend to know about something when they really don't - I'm sick and tired of Red mistaking the politics of a company with the technological merits of their systems, and pretending to know how Unix systems work when he actually doesn't.

For the record: On a political level, I dislike Apple too. But they make a good computer and they make a good OS, and my dislike for the politics of Apple isn't going to change my affection for their actual products. (Though I'd rather not buy new Apple hardware in the future. Ironically, I'd like my next computer - whenever I get around to buying that, it could easily take me another five years to need one - to be a 2007-2010 vintage Mac.)

[NejinOniwa]

Magic is superior to friendship.

Discuss.

[stewartsage]

Which pony is superior?  Clearly it is Rainbow Dash.  And CB Unix is the best operating system of all time.

We need you Aurora-dono!  You're the only one keeping this all sane-ish.

[NejinOniwa]

PINKIE PIE IS MASTER RACE PONY. And the best OS of all time is NOT GOING THERE